Keys Cafe & Bakery — Restaurant in White Bear Lake

Wait time was good. The food, however, was not. I appreciate that they make everything fresh, but it doesn't actually taste good. I got a Monte Cristo, in fact, that is the entire reason I wanted to go there. There was no attempt to balance the ingredients. It was a huge chunk of turkey, a very thin slice of ham, and I could tell there was some Swiss cheese on it if I really searched, but I couldn't taste it. And then the jam. Gotta have jam with a Monte Cristo, right? I was given just over 2 thimbles full of jam for the entire sandwich. The jam was really good, but I could only use the tiniest bit at a time. I used one of the thimbles for about 2/3 of the first half, so I asked the waitress if I could have more, and she said, "you do know you have another one on your plate still" to which I replied that yes I did know, but I would still like more. She came to the table a couple more times, but never with any jam.

Our waitress was terrible, I'm sorry to say. My son specifically asked for no gravy on his sandwich, and it was covered with it. That was literally the only change we asked for in our order, and then that I would like more jam, and she got nothing right. She was really vigilant about keeping or water glasses filled though, so that's something.

The prices were very reasonable, and staff was friendly. Even when our waitress ignored what we wanted, she was still pleasant. I'm sure they have some good food, since it's so busy, but none of us had any of it. It was a huge bummer after looking forward to going...

Hopefully this review reaches the owners. I have been coming to this location for the past 4 years. The chicken fried steak with that seriously amazing gravy was my go to. I dreamed about it. Why on EARTH would you change it? It was liquid gold. I came back to eat here after some time away I came with two friends I ripped and raved about this place. It wasn’t good. You guys didn’t even change the menu description so when I read it I’m like yep that’s what I want ! So good! When the waitress brought it out I noticed immediately it didn’t look the same it had chunks and I tasted it and was really disappointed. You subbed it for a pork sausage gravy and you didn’t even write that down for people who don’t eat pork! Like us! So misleading and when I brought it up to the waitress she acknowledged that the recipe was changed and no longer make the gravy. I told her I didn’t like it and we don’t eat pork. She said nothing. I put the plate to the side and it sat there for the entire meal. She didn’t offer any resolution or take it off the tab. She charged us for it. I did call in and speak to the manager and suggest starting with changing the menu and also we would have appreciated the item comped from the bill. In a nutshell owners if your reading this do yourself a favor and bring back the old gravy ! Doing a renovation doesn’t mean that you have to...

Went to Keys for breakfast and wanted to sit outside. We were told it would be a 15 minute wait. We walked down the block for a bit and returned within 15 minutes. We waited for a bit and were talking to a couple that had just arrived. To our surprise they were seated before us. When we asked the hostess why we were not offered the table her response was “well you weren’t here and they showed up…I would suggest sticking around here”. Mind you we were not gone long and showed up, waited and were not seated.

I don’t normally post bad reviews. However, this truly upset me. I have worked in the service industry for many years. When the hostess saw us waiting she should have let the other couple know that we had put our name on the list prior and that they would be seated next, but she didn’t.

One year ago my boyfriend and I went on our first date to Keys. He was trying to redo our first date as a surprise to me. After the rude interaction and lack of customer service we left and went elsewhere. By the way, Cobblestone down the street has extremely friendly staff and they work well under pressure. This is a tip the hostess from Keys...